


First Meeting

by planetundersiege



Series: The Various Tales of the Skaia Orphanage [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Children, Equius and Nepeta meeting, Founding friendship, Gen, Humanstuck, Kind soul Equius, Meowrails, Orphanage, Runnaways, living in the woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8499445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/planetundersiege/pseuds/planetundersiege
Summary: Nepeta runs away and finds a new friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone. This is just gonna be a oneshot, and a prequel to a story I'' planning for later.

She heard the birds soft singing and a few small branches break as she turned around in the big pile of golden and red leaves under a tree that hid her from the huge outside world. She let out a huge yawn slowly before sitting up in the pile of leaves, shivering a little and remembering where she was, as she wished she could go back to the comfortable warmth that was sleep. There she didn't need to feel either cold or hunger, or anything at all that was unpleasant.  
She should have planned more before running away, that's for sure, but a ten year old didn't think things through when they were scared. She couldn’t really blame herself for that one, not like they always did.  
Her parents had always argued, as long as she could remember, but things had gotten a lot worse during the last years, and a lot worse since her sister Meulin moved to her boyfriend’s house and refused to go home, leaving Nepeta alone with two unstable adults with anger issues that didn't know the name of proper childcare, only how to give children constant nightmares for the rest of their lives. Everything had gotten worse, day after day, she had no idea how Meulin had handled so much pain for so long before she went away.  
The days had went on and she tried to feel normal and tried to ignore everything, but eventually the day where she broke down arrived, making her run away. Instead of getting on the school bus, she had gotten on a regular communal one and traveled first from her small town, through a city and jumped off at the outskirt of it, near another small town with a huge forest with only a small bag with school lunch and her favorite blue beanie with her. She wanted to get as far away as possible from them and she would have loved to travel even further away, but her money was gone, all wasted on the bus trips. At least she was about an hour or two from them, better than just being on the other side of town.  
First she had considered asking the police for help, but quickly realized that they only would send her back to hell, and if her parents found her they would become even worse, so she had fled into the woods and have lived there for a few days now, wandering miles every day trying to find small pieces of food and maybe something warm, two days ago she had found a small baby blanket, it barely fit over her stomach but it was some warmth.  
She carefully stood up before putting the blanket into her bag before walking off. There were some blueberry bushes and apples trees nearby the park, and there she could atleast have some breakfast before wandering off to find more things, hopefully warm ones. It was gonna snow any day now and she had no idea how she would make it through the long winter when she barely could fall asleep because she froze too much now during fall.  
She just closed her eyes and just nodded to herself, she didn't wanna know the answer so she simply stopped thinking about it. Everything was better than her parents atleast.  
The sounds of trees being hammered by woodpeckers and twitters from birds passing by was everything she heard, except the sound she made every time her feet touched the ground and crumbled some old leaves, she didn't know if she should be relaxed by that or not, but she just kept on walking, the chance of finding food in the park was way higher than in the middle of the forest, if she was lucky maybe there was a half eaten hotdog or something, she really missed those kinds of food.  
Minutes passed without anything remotely interesting happen, she only kept on walking, and then she finally reached the outskirts of the large park, where no people ever seemed to go too, not that she complained. That meant that they wouldn't call the police and try to get her.  
She quickly went to the large trash cans, which sadly was empty, not even a single piece of bread anywhere, and she was scared of going further into the park, so she just turned around and went to the bushes. She would have to do with blueberries today too, maybe she would have a better luck at finding something edible tomorrow. She hoped so atleast.  
As she continued to eat, staining her hands into a purple color, she soon started to feel like someone was watching her, and without even making sure that it was true, she ran.  
She ran the fastest she could, straight into the forest, not stopping for minutes, while she heard a few faint “wait” coming from the distance. One part of her wanted to stay, because the voice was not the one of an adult, it was the one of a child, but her instincts were stronger than her usual over the top curiosity.  
As she hid under the branches of a fallen tree, she soon her the voice dissapear, but she was afraid to move, so she stayed there for god knows how long, and before she knew it the sun was about to down, making it darker for each minute, and as she was about to make a small soft bed out of leaves before sleeping early so she would not feel the cold, and she heard sounds again.  
She heard faint footsteps, slowly coming closer, disappearing before being heard again, and she saw the faint light of a flashlight nearby. The panic hit her and she curled up into a ball, praying that it wasn't the police, anything but the police.  
The steps came closers every second, making the light closer for every second, and as she heard the sound of someone grabbing the branches, she just waited for the screaming, but nothing came.  
Slowly she looked up, expecting to see grownups in uniform, but in front of her was a child. A small boy her age, with big blue eyes and long black hair.  
She waited for his next moment as she saw him sit down next to her, and took out a small apple from his pocket, handing it over to her, waiting for her to eat. After few seconds of doubting and looking into his eyes she just nodded, and started to wolf down the apple like she had never seen food in her life before, leaving absolutely nothing behind?  
“Do you want another one?”, the boy asked, and she recognized him as the voice calling for her earlier, and she just nodded as he stood up, helping her up too.  
“My bag is back in the park, it has lots of food, I saw you earlier today and wanted to find you”.  
“Why?”.  
She didn't receive an answer, she just saw that he was looking down to the ground.  
“Why are you by yourself?”.  
For a moment she was quite, but answered nervously.  
“My parents are bad…”.  
He gave her a small nod, “Mine too”.  
They got to the park and both of them started to wolf down apples, his bag was full of them, and once they had eaten a couple, they just looked at each other, before she let out a huge burp, which made the boy start laughing, and he tried to imitate her burp, and for a second, they were regular children without worries.  
“Mine was louder”.  
“No way, my burps are STRONG”.  
She let out her tounge and gave him a goofy grin before laughing some more  
“My name's Equius. And you?”.  
She didn't answer, just looking down at the ground, forgetting about being silly so fast again.  
“Why are you here?”.  
“Told you… My parents are bad”.  
“Do you have somewhere to live?”, and she just shook her head to that question.  
“Come with me, you can live at my house, it’s safe”.  
Without question, the walk started.

\------

Several minutes later, Miss Paint, the managers of the Skaia Orpanage her knockings on the door which interrupted the late dinner. She opened and saw one of her young ones with a stranger covered in dirt and leaves, and she knew directly what was up.  
They got in, she got a warm bath and some warm food, and before bed in this new wonder, she met up with the boy and stood in front of him, before saying what she had refused to say back in the dark park,  
“Nepeta, my name is Nepeta”.


End file.
